State capitol stage awaits actors in 2012

Lawmakers and the governor to confront redistricting, more economic problems in 2012

By JIMMY VIELKIND, Capitol bureau

Published 10:05 pm, Saturday, December 31, 2011

ALBANY — By most any measure, 2011 was a very productive year for state government: lawmakers capped local property tax increases, legalized same-sex marriage, forced public officials to disclose more of their outside income, and rewrote the income tax code.

So what will 2012 bring to the Capitol?

Many will be watching how Gov. Andrew Cuomo performs. The Democrat roared through his first year in office brokering compromises between the Republican-controlled Senate and Democrat-dominated Assembly.

"I think it's going to be a very good year," said Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari, D-Cohoes. "The second year begins, but the honeymoon continues."

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Wednesday marks the official kickoff to the legislative session, and Cuomo's second State of the State Message. Debate has already started on many issues that will come to dominate state discourse. Some will be new. Some began in 2011. Others come up every session, with advocates wondering if the 2012 will finally be the year for action.

Redistricting

Under the same logic that wars are determined by the quality of an army's supply chains, political battles — particularly in the closely divided state Senate — are most heavily influenced by where legislative districts end up.

All 212 seats in the Assembly and Senate will be filled by candidates running in new districts this year as the state completes the once-a-decade redistricting process. Because of national population shifts, New York's congressional delegation will shrink from 29 to 27, sparking a game of musical chairs that in the past has ended political careers.

"It's always traumatic," Canestrari said.

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Redistricting is the purview of LATFOR, a legislative chimera controlled by Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans. Its work has been criticized by good-government groups, who were joined by Cuomo in 2011 calling for a new process that didn't account for party enrollment or incumbent residence in drawing districts.

Cuomo has said he was doubtful LATFOR could draw lines that are independent or non-partisan, but efforts to create a new task force have foundered. So LATFOR has forged ahead with public hearings, possibly forcing Cuomo to make good on a threat to veto the lines. That would put redistricting under the watchful eyes of a judge.

There are lots of moving parts, and good-government advocates like Susan Lerner of Common Cause are hoping for some kind of bold statement from Cuomo in his State of the State speech.

"The big issues are redistricting and campaign finance reform, particularly the public funding of elections," she said. "These are both issues which the governor has spoken extensively about in the past. He's included them as high-priority items during his campaign, and I think there's a good likelihood that he will be talking about them."

Economy/budget

Most people expect Cuomo's speech to focus on economics. Even after a special session of the Legislature in December that renewed most of an income tax surcharge that was set to expire, the budget deficit for the next fiscal year is still upward of $2 billion.

For the last several months, Cuomo has presented this as merely a symptom of a larger economic problem, and his speech — to be delivered on the Empire State Plaza Convention Center and televised statewide — will likely repeat the theme.

Cuomo has already formed 10 regional economic development councils around the state, using them as vehicles to award state money for infrastructure and tax breaks for businesses. In doing so, he has noted that New York is not the competitive steamroller, economically speaking, that it was for much of the 20th century.

Perhaps as a physical reminder of past state dominance, Cuomo has arranged half a dozen historic vehicles — including limousines acquired by Govs. Nelson Rockefeller and Franklin D. Roosevelt — between the site of the speech and the Capitol.

The car display is expected to end up in his speech.

Mandate relief

The term "mandate relief" is used as a catchall by business groups and coalitions of local municipalities to complain about laws and programs they have no control over, but which drive their costs.

Counties want the state to take over funding of the Medicaid program. Some mayors decry a law that keeps municipal contracts in effect after they've expired, which the executives say hurts their leverage at the bargaining table.

The problem with changing any of these things is that one man's mandate is another's treasured program. Cuomo convened a task force to study the subject, but the two reports it issued last year landed with a whimper.

This year, business leaders say, they hope a 2 percent cap on local property tax increases will serve as a gun to the heads of previously intractable forces. They've also been honing their economic development councils.

"The tax cap was step one, this is step two," said Brian Sampson, executive director of Unshackle Upstate, a business group.

Gambling

Both Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, have committed to legalizing casino gambling in some form in New York, something which will require amending the constitution and authorizing by law.

The amendment process is somewhat cumbersome, and requires two successive legislatures to authorize a change. The so-called "first passage" bill will move in 2012, but exactly how it is structured has already been the subject of much lobbying.

Hydrofracking

The construction of the regulatory framework that will guide the development of the controversial natural gas drilling technique has become the dominant environmental issue across the state, if not the nation. Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens made it clear weeks ago that unanswered questions about the resources needed by the state to police the industry make it highly unlikely that any hydrofracking will take place within New York's borders in 2012.

So far, Cuomo has stood back and advised patience as the DEC has absorbed heat from anti-fracking groups. As the process goes forward — in an election year — the stakes for advocates, lawmakers and the executive branch will increase.

Government restructuring

Speaking last month with the Times Union, Cuomo deplored the state of government agencies as "frighteningly bad." He has convened a commission to look at reorganizing the government, one of his major campaign themes.

Already, state workers are having their offices shuffled back downtown as managers — noting a 25 percent vacancy rate — let leases on private space lapse and "re-stack" into state-owned buildings.